Environmental Sustainability

Environmental Dimension

• Global economic growth increases ecological consequences and interdependence, leading to higher mobility, advances in communication, and more competition.
• These factors change natural and business environments and lead to increasing consumption of resources, growing emissions, and waste production.
• A key environmental challenge involves reducing emissions to keep warming below 1.5°C by 2030.
• Sustainability is defined as development which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs
• Planetary Boundaries identifies nine ecological limits: climate change, biodiversity loss, and nitrogen/phosphorus cycles; crossing these can destabilize Earth systems.
• Decoupling reduces environmental impact while maintaining economic growth through resource efficiency and clean technologies.
• Ecological Footprint measures resource consumption against the planet’s regenerative capacity, monitoring ecological balance.

Planetary Boundaries

• Climate Change includes rising global temperatures that are driven by human activities; it leads to extreme weather, rising sea levels, and ecosystem disruptions
• Crossing warming limits related to climate change risks irreversible climate damage
• Biosphere Integrity involves loss of biodiversity weakening ecosystems and resulting in food chain disruptions
• Habitat destruction, pollution, overfishing, and invasive species cause a loss of biosphere integrity
• Land System Change involves deforestation and urbanization that harms ecosystems and contributes to loss of carbon storage and soil degradation
• Freshwater Use involves excessive water use outpacing natural replacement, thereby causing shortages and loss of aquatic life
• Biogeochemical Flows refer to farming and industry disrupting natural nitrogen and phosphorus cycles
• Disrupting biogeochemical flows causes water pollution, toxic algae blooms, and dead zones in water bodies
• Ocean Acidification is caused by oceans increased absorption of CO2 weakening coral reefs, dissolving sea creatures' shells, and disrupting food chains
• Air Pollution, or Aerosol Loading, is caused by tiny particles from factories, fires, and storms polluting the air
• Air pollution affects sunlight and causes breathing and heart diseases
• Ozone Layer Depletion involves human-made chemicals thinning the ozone layer and increasing harmful UV rays
• Pollution from New Substances, also known as Novel Entities, involves synthetic chemicals, plastics, and heavy metals polluting the environment and leading to toxin buildup in wildlife
• The nine boundaries provide a guide to sustainable development, assisting businesses to reduce environmental impact

Ehrlich's IPCT Formula and Ecological Footprint

• The Ehrlich formula is I=PxCxT where I (Impact) = total environmental impact, P (Population) = the number of people consuming resources, C (Consumption) = the amount of goods consumed, and T (Technology) = efficiency of consumption.
• Increases in population and per capita consumption lead to greater environmental pressure, resource depletion, and waste production.
• Technology can reduce or amplify the environmental impact per unit of consumption.
• The Ecological Footprint measures how much nature people use compared to what the planet can renew, including carbon emissions, grazing land, forests, fishing, cropland, and built-up land
• Today's Ecological Footprint is over 70% larger than what the planet can regenerate, equivalent to using 1.7 Earths

Kaya Identity

• The Kaya Identity formula quantifies factors that drive carbon dioxide: GHG Emissions = Population × GDP/Population × Energy/GDP × GHG/Energy.
• The formula breaks greenhouse gas emissions into population size, GDP per capita, energy efficiency, and carbon intensity.
• Decoupling emissions from economic growth requires reducing the use of energy to produce the same amount of goods and shifting to cleaner energy sources like wind or solar.
• Reducing emissions requires slowing population growth, reducing consumption, improving energy efficiency, and lowering carbon intensity.
• If energy intensity and carbon intensity decrease faster than population and economic output increase, total emissions can decrease even as the economy expands.

Challenges and Solutions

• Climate Change is driven by greenhouse gases, results in sea-level rise, and could exacerbate droughts
• Biodiversity Loss threatens over 70% of species globally
• The Biodiversity Intactness Index (BII) measures degradation in global ecosystems
• Plastic Pollution is pervasive, entering marine food chains and posing health risks
• Resource Overuse currently exceeds Earth’s regenerative capacity
• Solutions require global coordination, decarbonization, efficiency, and a global carbon price to align worldwide efforts
• Fragmentation and free-riding can be limited with unified global commitment like the Paris Accord

Case study Introduction

• Interface uses recycled materials towards biosphere integrity and limits resource extraction to transition land system change
• A focus on renewable energy for climate change involves water saving technologies for freshwater use, and transitioning to cleaner materials

Seven Fronts of Mount Sustainability

• Eliminating Waste focuses on waste reduction to achieve zero landfill, using Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to measure environmental impact at every stage
• Benign Emissions focuses on removing toxic substances from production and install efficient systems like intelligent conveyor belts to minimize emissions
• Renewable Energy focuses on the transition to 100% renewable energy by investing in wind and biogas
• Closing the Loop focuses on using recycled bio-based materials aiming for a circular economy designing fully recyclable products
• Resource-Efficient Transition optimizes logistics to minimize fuel use, engages employees and redesigning commerce to promote circular economy principles

Social Dimension & its Principles

• Social Sustainability aims is creating equitable, diverse, and inclusive societies that ensure health, education, and well-being for all
• The dimension includes Intragenerational Equity, the the fair distribution of resources and opportunities within the current generation
• Intergenerational Equity ensures equitable and livable systems for future generations
• The UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 aimed to eradicate poverty and hunger, achieve education, promote gender equality, reduce child mortality, improve maternal health, combat diseases, ensure sustainability, and develop global partnerships
• Though considerable advances in health and combats were made, challenges persist with poverty, inequality, and unfulfilled commitments that highlight the need for continued support

Sustainable Development Goals

• SDGs builds on the MDGs from with inclusive scope, featuring multiple targets with sustainability remaining a significant global challenge
• Labor Exploitation is highlighted by garment manufacturing incidents, leading to issues with weak labor rights enforcement
• Gender Inequality is exacerbated by the disproportionate earnings in global work hours with gaps remaining in health care access
• Global Poverty is persistent with billions lacking access to clean water and sanitation

Solutions and Frameworks

• International Frameworks address international accountability with improved systems
• Bangladesh Accord was designed to improve Bangladesh's garment industry following mass loss in the Rana Plaza factory
• Social Enterprise is a business that prioritizes social or environmental impact while maintaining financial sustainability, like Tony’s Chocolonely

Tony's Chocolonely

• Tony's Chocolonely operates as a for-profit social enterprise with a strong social mission, focusing on ethical sourcing projects
• The company aims include ending child labor and ensuring fair wages
• The measures align with SDGs, including promoting decent work while reducing waste
• Unlike Fair Trade which requires minimum price and standards, Tony's maintains standards such as the child labor monitoring system and high prices
• Transparency throughout the supply chain helps the company to ensure that each chocolate bean can be traced back to the farm and other chocolate brands are invited to follow its ethical model as a way to increase higher farmer wages

Tony's Challenges

• Tony faces scalability, requires high consumer costs, and compliance
• Its model faces pushback from big companies that may resist profit loss

Three Approaches to Sustainable Development

• Economic Sustainability entails the ability to maintain a stable production, efficiently use of resources and ensure long term profitability with resource conservation
• It builds resilient systems and creates viable economies, often interpreted as an overshadowing economic growth
• Weak Sustainability entails natural resources replaced by human-made capital with technological progress as economic growth
• Strong Sustainability sees nature that cannot be replaced with ecological that remains in balance

GDP

• Gross Domestic Product (GDP) measures a country’s economic growth, but often can ignore income inequality and fails to capture non-market activities
• To overcome shortcomings, the Human Development Index (HDI) factors social impact while the Genuine Process Indicator (GPI) incorporates social and environmental costs
• It is essential for balanced sustainable policies versus wealth growth

Limits to Growth

• Resource depiction affects economic factors

• Population increases impact the world

• Unlimited growth in a finite world is unsustainable to economic and population increases

• Economic growth must be balanced with preserving the environment

Sustainable Development: Key Principles

• Sustainable Development involves balancing present economic growth and ensuring long-term prosperity
• GDP’s shortcomings can be overcome by the Human Development Index and Genuine Process Indicator
• The long term model involves balancing the need for more, and prioritizing needs
• Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present while not compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs
• Inter-generational Equity involves protecting resources for ecosystems with renewable energy
• Intra-generational Equity has a fair distribution of resources focusing on clean water
• Environmental Integrity involves maintaining ecosystems and reduces pollution

Environmental Integrity

• Efficiency involves focus on fewer resources regarding waste by LED lights
• Consistency involves harmonization with biodegradable alignment promoting natural cycles
• Sufficiency focuses on reducing over consuming by optimizing a well being and value creation of local support using community action

Climate Policy

• The Assigning a market price to pollution in incentives both businesses and individuals
• Cap-and-Trade provides a budget approach regarding emission where companies buy and sells emissions